The feds did extract some measure of control by still reserving the right to appeal the merger after the deal is completed.

As part of agreeing not to seek a stay on the merger, Justice got AT&T to agree to operate Time Warner essentially as a separate entity until the end of February 2019 or until a possible appeal is decided.

That way the deal could be unwound if necessary.

But for now the closing gives Stephenson his takeover of Time Warner seven days before the merger agreement was set to expire.

The separate Time Warner entity will be run by veteran AT&T executive John Stankey. As part of the closing, Time Warner chief Jeff Bewkes will stay on as a senior adviser.

“The content and creative talent at Warner Bros., HBO and Turner are first-rate. Combine all that with AT&T’s strengths in direct-to-consumer distribution, and we offer customers a differentiated, high-quality, mobile-first entertainment experience,” Stephenson said after the completed deal.

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Buh-bye Time Warner. While AT&T on Wednesday was being tight-lipped...

AT&T, which owns DirecTV, is now larger than Netflix and becomes one of the biggest media and communications companies. Through the merger it gains HBO, TBS, TNT, the Cartoon Network and CNN.

On Tuesday, DC District Court Judge Richard Leon, in his scathing, 170-page opinion, cautioned DOJ not to seek an emergency stay to delay the closing, yet he had little power to enforce it.

It appears, according to sources, that the government heard the judge’s warning and figured it would face a high hurdle to get an appellate court to agree to issue an emergency stay before the deal would close.

For now, though, Stephenson has won his prize. Several DC sources, including one close to AT&T, had thought the DOJ would appeal and seek a four-to-six-month delay in the closing even aftyer the tongue-lashing it got in Judge Leon’s 166-page opinion.

However, sources believed the DOJ would not get a stay, and it seems the DOJ reached the same conclusion.

They needed at least two of three judges at the Court of Appeals to agree to an emergency stay.

Cornell professor George Hay, a former DOJ official, said that Leon was careful not to say that vertical mergers — combinations of companies in similar but different industries — could not be blocked, but said the evidence was just not there to stop this vertical merger.

Justice lawyers believed AT&T would raise prices or withhold content from rivals if the deal was made.

This is the first time the DOJ has tried to stop a vertical merger since 1979.

“There was not much of a chance of getting a stay,” Hay said. “The decision was so fact-based that the appeal will be difficult,” he added.